


this déjà vu i can never place

by doxian



Series: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics (SASO) 2017 [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Challenge: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics | SASO 2017, M/M, Memory Loss, POV Second Person, Quests, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 17:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doxian/pseuds/doxian
Summary: You have a thousand questions - mostly about why Yuri has managed to slot himself into your life with the ease of a very old friend, why you're sure you must have known each other before although you can't remember how.





	this déjà vu i can never place

**Author's Note:**

> [written for this prompt for SASO 2017 bonus round 4](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=13762673#cmt13762673)

You've been at the tavern for little over an hour when you finally notice him. 

You and your guard had just driven a mob of outsiders from your territory after a gruelling fight that had lasted for what felt like hours. The spilled blood and adrenaline rush had whipped your group into a fevered frenzy that only copious amounts of alcohol - and more trouble, potentially - could sate. As a result, nobody else picks up on the scraggly youth in the corner but you. 

He's been watching you ever since you all arrived, having claimed a few tables at the centre of the establishment in a flurry of triumphant shouts and clanging of weapons. He's small, and frail-looking, and seems ill-dressed for the cold - the leathers he's wearing are probably doing little to protect him against the chill that sometimes cuts through even your furs. 

You wait until the rest of your group gets caught up in a story - something thrilling and devilish and with just the right amount of bloodshed - before you pick up your tumbler and walk over to him, taking one of the empty seats at his table.

It's then that you realize that while he might be young, his eyes are filled with more knowledge than one so young should possess, and he holds himself with the certainty that he isn't going to be surprised by anything anymore. 

He definitely doesn't seem surprised when a member of the group he's been spying on sits right down next to him. On the contrary, it's almost as though he'd been expecting you to eventually make your way over.

"Otabek," he says. "You have to ditch this band of losers and come with me." 

For a second you assume he knows who you are because he's apparently been tasked with _stalking you_ , but then the conviction that of _course_ he knows you swells in your heart like a sunrise. And what shines just as true is the belief that, somehow, you know him, as well. 

He wants to travel to a temple at the far reaches to retrieve a crystal. The crystal is of utmost importance, although he can't specify why. 

You watch him just as closely as you listen. His hair would be like gold if it were washed. His frown is pronounced and his mouth unsmiling, although you can picture exactly what he'd look like happy. 

He already feels more like home than the cold wilderness you've inhabited throughout the duration of your memory. 

So you join him.

You ask for his name as you leave the watering hole, since it's only fair for you to know his name, too. 

He looks at you and huffs. 

"I'm so fucking tired of this," he grumbles, extending a hand. "I'm Yuri Plisetsky."

\--

You travel.

He takes you far enough south that you shed your furs for clothing that better suits the warm climate. When he loses track of where the two of you are supposed to go next, he finds information. When information isn't given to him freely, he steals it. He interrogates and pickpockets with confidence born from years of practice, even targeting the sorts of ruffians who would go so far as to break the fingers of any thief they caught stealing from them. 

You thought you'd be the one protecting him, but more often than not you just end up in the way. Still, your superior strength does come in handy in a few close-quarters fights that Yuri can't stealth you both out of.

By the time you reach the temple, you have a thousand questions - mostly about why Yuri has managed to slot himself into your life with the ease of a very old friend, why you're sure you must have known each other before although you can't remember how.

But that can come later. 

The temple possesses more gravitas than the crystal itself, which turns out to be a tiny shard of brightness surrounded by a halo of light. The temple, on the other hand, is large, and sombre, with grand columns and crumbling statues that are no less breathtaking in their state of disrepair. 

The crystal is hovering over a platform, and leading to the platform are some steps.

Before you can climb up the steps, Yuri takes your hand. Takes a breath. It's more hesitance than you've seen him display so far.

"Okay," Yuri says, as though you're just beginning your journey, not ending it. "Let's do this."

You walk up the steps, side by side. Yuri is still holding your hand, squeezing so tight that it hurts. You both reach out for the crystal - it was important, Yuri had told you, that the both of you take it, and--

Reality shifts around you. The columns and statues seem to be bending, like reflections in a funhouse mirror, and you realize it's not that the reality around you is changing so much as the two of you are about to be launched out of it.

And then you remember. 

You remember realities upon realities in mere moments. You remember having made this journey many times before, but in vastly different settings and circumstances. You remember Yuri dragging you to one reality's crystal when you were injured, once, after barely escaping an attack you were both too weak to weather. You remember another time when you warped right next to one reality's crystal, and immediately grabbed it to warp out again. 

You remember your homeworld, and you remember seeing the crystal whole, before it was shattered into shards that were scattered across universes; breadcrumbs that you've been following to get home ever since. You remember what life was like before waking up another galaxy. 

And you remember that as soon as you leave your current world for the next, you'll forget everything again.

You're going to forget Yuri again.

Yuri is looking at you. He's smiling, but his eyes are glimmering as though with unshed tears. 

There's a sound picking up around you that's like a storm roaring. You don't have much time left.

"How many more?" 

"Two," yells Yuri. "We're so close, Otabek, oh my _god_ \--"

You're holding both his hands, one with the shard between your palms, glowing through the spaces in your fingers. You have seconds to go before the two of you depart, and you cling to your newly rediscovered memories like your life depends on it, even though you know they'll inevitably be swept away again like so many grains of sand on the shore. 

"Yuri," you shout. "Promise me you'll find me again."

Yuri's smile grows wider and the light between you grows brighter, swallowing up your surroundings like a bleached-out photograph. 

" _Obviously_ ," he says. "I always do."

His eyes are the last things you see before you both vanish.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the prompt, which was:
> 
> _I am completely convinced_   
>  _that in an alternate universe one of us fought for the other_   
>  _it's these visions I get sometimes_   
>  _this deja vu I can never place_   
>  _your face in my dreams mouthing_   
>  _I'm not erasing you_
> 
> \- @blankpoems


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